Republicans Paint Reid as Bogeyman in 2014 Senate Races

May 16 (Bloomberg) -- Republicans are invoking a harrowing
image of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to lure independent
voters away from Democrats and motivate their party base ahead
of November’s election.

The strategy has a big glitch: Almost half the voters don’t
know who Reid is.

Republicans needn’t worry too much, though, as Reid’s line
of attack against them isn’t much better. He’s focused on an
even lesser-known pair of bogeymen, the energy billionaire Koch
brothers, who are financing a number of pro-Republican groups.

“To normal independent voters, the most obscure story
possible would be a fight between Reid and the Koch brothers
over Benghazi,” said John Pitney, a political scientist at
Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, California, in a
reference to the 2012 attack on a Libya diplomatic post that
left four Americans dead.

“Most normal human beings outside of the state of Nevada
neither know nor care who Harry Reid is. I’m sure most people
associate the Koch brothers with a certain cola beverage,”
Pitney said.

Unlike presidential campaigns, elections held in the middle
of a White House term tend to lack broad themes and big
personalities. Even so, that hasn’t stopped leaders in
Washington from trying to latch on to Reid and the Koch brothers
to personify the traits of the other party that could turn
voters away.

Previous Strategies

Democrats had some luck with a similar strategy in seizing
on a series of Republican scandals in 2006 and rode a throw-the-bums-out campaign to the U.S. House majority. During the 2010
midterms, Republicans joined a grassroots rebellion against the
passage of Obamacare to regain control of the chamber.

Other messages flopped. To try to salvage their majority,
congressional Republicans in 2006 attempted to use a family’s
fight over whether to keep alive Terri Schiavo, a Florida woman
in a vegetative state, as an emblem of their support for the
sanctity of life. It never caught on with voters.

In this year’s election, Republican candidates in
competitive Senate races have been invoking Reid on the stump,
in campaign ads and in fundraising memos as they work to help
their party win the net six seats needed to secure a majority in
the 100-member chamber.

‘Firing’ Reid

The Republican National Committee released an April 22 memo
criticizing Reid, arguing that “firing Harry Reid from his
position as majority leader” was a reason to vote Senate
Democrats out of office in November.

Tillis, the state House speaker, told supporters that his
“primary mission” is to defeat Democratic incumbent Kay Hagan
“and make Harry Reid irrelevant.” He added that Hagan and Reid
“are nothing but an echo chamber for President Obama’s worst
ideas,” according to the News and Observer of Raleigh.

Colorado Representative Cory Gardner, who is challenging
first-term Democrat Mark Udall, pledged “to make Harry Reid a
footnote in history.” And in Georgia, Representative Paul Broun
-- one of a half-dozen Republicans seeking to win a May 20
primary take on Democrat Michelle Nunn -- referred to Nunn in an
e-mail to supporters as “the anointed candidate of the
president, first lady and Harry Reid.”

‘Nobody Knows’

Reid said on the Senate floor May 13 that an unidentified
Democratic senator had told him he wished Republicans would go
after Reid in his state because “nobody knows who you are.”

“They are getting desperate for something to change their
tune,” Reid said.

New York Senator Charles Schumer, the chamber’s third-ranking Democrat, said the Republican strategy won’t work in the
November match-ups, while his party’s plan to target the Kochs
will.

“I think the Koch brothers are an issue -- the fact that
three or four wealthy people can set the whole agenda in this
country,” Schumer said.

The Kochs’ political spending makes them a target. Reid
yesterday called them “a couple of billionaire oil barons” who
were staging a “bid for a hostile takeover of American
democracy” designed to “make themselves even richer.”

Polling indicates that Reid is better-known than the Koch
Brothers -- and more disliked.

Unfavorable View

A George Washington University poll conducted March 16-20
found that almost half of likely voters nationwide -- 41 percent
-- hadn’t heard of or had no opinion of Reid, while 35 percent
held an unfavorable view of him. Almost two-thirds of likely
voters -- 63 percent -- weren’t aware of or had no opinion of
the Koch brothers, while 25 percent viewed them unfavorably,
according to the same poll.

A Gallup Poll released yesterday showed that 32 percent of
Americans hadn’t heard of Reid, while 41 percent held
unfavorable views of him. That survey was conducted April 24-30.

The role of Democratic attack dog is one that Reid
relishes. In 2012, he repeatedly accused Republican presidential
nominee Mitt Romney of not paying taxes, and called former
President George W. Bush a “loser” and a “liar.”

The effort to tie this year’s Democratic Senate candidates
to Reid may have repercussions for Reid’s bid in two years for a
sixth Senate term. The shrewd senator said in an interview at
the Capitol that he anticipates the Koch brothers will help fund
his eventual 2016 Republican opponent.

‘Against Me’

“I’m told they’re going to spend against me,” he said,
adding that for now he’s “just focusing on” his job as
majority leader.

Still, Reid said he isn’t taking anything for granted in
his race two years from now.

“Over the years, I do the best I can and realize I only
need one more than 50 -- my elections are normally quite
close,” he said.

Erik Herzik, a political science professor at the
University of Nevada at Reno, said Reid “has made a career out
of being underestimated at election time,” noting that his
political team is gearing up for the 2016 campaign.